Thursday, July 10, 2014

The Taliban: Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent

For Westerners, Afghanistan has always
been distant, exotic, and periodically threatening. In the Occident, the Afghan
warrior tradition enjoys well-earned respect. Many countries have invaded
Afghanistan, but few have controlled it for long. In the 19th century, the British conquered, then were
defeated, then conquered again, and then left Afghanistan. The Soviets had an
equally checkered relationship with Afghanistan and, like the British before
them, were defeated.

Afghans, too, suffered the wages of war. In the late 20thcentury, the Soviets carpet bombed villages and valleys, killing over 1
million Afghans and dispersing many millions more into squalid, disease-ridden
refugee shanties. After the Soviet invasion, the always-fragile traditional
economy collapsed, plunging Afghans into destitution, fatalism, and despair.

For more than 12
years, the United States has been at war in Afghanistan. Events surrounding
that country provoke controversy. An American soldier captured by the Taliban
under questionable circumstances was
recently traded for elite Afghan insurgents. Will this prolong the insurgency,
will it shorten it, or will it have no consequence? This is uncertain. But what
is certain is that Afghanistan serves as a grand laboratory of military and
economic developmental polices. Lessons drawn from counterinsurgency successes
and failures guide American policies in some of the most desperately poor
nations of the world. This is a battle of wills.The Taliban’s goal of
reestablishing Islamic law, or Sharia, is common to many Islamic organizations,
both militant as well as those who proclaim themselves peaceful. The use of
insurgency is one tactic to achieve the world domination of Islam. Militant
Islam is expressed through different means and media. For this reason, it is a
battle of ideas, as well as bullets. It is being waged through the Internet, in
mosques, and in religious schools, or madrassas, as well as on the fields of
battle in Afghanistan.

The Taliban offer an
unrelenting dedication to conquer Afghanistan, an unconstrained use of terror,
and solidarity with important fragments of global Islam. The Taliban leverage
deeply ingrained Afghan skepticism of Western promises for a better future.
Foreign men have come and gone from Afghanistan, and, despite promises, only
the poverty remains.Taliban leaders boast that Afghans are armed
with the religious fervor, honor, and resolve. “Such weapons are neither
available in the arsenal of America nor in the warehouse of her allies.”[1]
In January 2013, the Taliban crowed, “No sooner will the foreigners quit than
the Afghans will start living under the cover of an Islamic government and in
the environment of Islamic brotherhood.”

The American-led
Coalition is determined to prevent the Taliban’s triumph. Today’s soldiers on
both sides of the struggle have lived only in wartime. The sons of Taliban
fighters, who were 10 when the group was scattered into Pakistan, are now in
their early 20s. Many are hardened fighters and will, undoubtedly, face the
sons of the Northern Alliance. The Taliban are tough, but so are many other
Afghans.

As the bookThe Taliban: Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgents
comes to publication, U.S. forces are
scheduled to leave, and the Taliban will certainly try to fill the security
vacuum. Thirteen years of building a civil service, army, police, and health
and educational system will be put to the test. The extent to which
Afghanistan’s fortunes are intertwined with or independent of American military
will be decided. Will the Taliban’s power-sharing negotiations become a viper’s
embrace of the still-struggling Karzai regime? Can the Karzai regime stand on
its own to meet the Taliban challenge? The stakes are survival for the new
Afghan state.

Mark Silinsky is a 30-year
veteran of the defense intelligence community. He has served as a senior
counterinsurgency advisor and counterintelligence analyst in the United States
and in Afghanistan. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Southern
California; earned a master's degree from Oxford University; and is a graduate
of the Naval War College, the National Defense University, and the National
Intelligence University.

[1]
Statement of the Islamic Emirate on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11, Afghan
Forums, Accessed July 1, 2014, http://www.afghanforums.com/showthread.php?23426-Statement-of-the-Islamic-Emirate-on-the-Tenth-Anniversary-of-9-11-you-must-read-it-)